Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Wedding Invitation Revealed!

As I've said before, when I find time to craft nowadays it is mostly dedicated to making all the wedding creations I have committed myself to do.  The first "biggies" on my list were the wedding invitations.  Remember my last post with the tiny square numbered carstock pieces?  You guessed it- they were part of the invitation:



I took 2 square pieces of cardstock and sandwiched a piece of twine (LOVE twine!) in between them, putting simple knots in between each set.  The hearts on the end were a thicker cardstock that we bought in bulk on ebay.  I attached the end of the string inside of the envelope so that it could not pull entirely out. 
That envelope was made using the Silhouette, but I changed the front to a point instead of a rounded shape like the original had.  The "True Love Lasts Forever" was a stamp.


Want to see the whole invitation now?The theme for the wedding is a sort of mix between rustic and vintage.  That's why you can find both styles incorporated into these invitations:


The front is made of that rustic carstock that I love so much.  We printed out the saying with a regular printer then cut out the shape with the Silhouette.  In the square, we took a sandspeck paper and attached a vinyl (yep, that's vinyl) tree shape to it.  Then the smaller square was just attached to the back of the rustic paper.  We took twine (told you I loved it) and wrapped it around that section before attaching it to the whole invitation.

The inside has two parts:  The left side has a piece of lace running across the top.  If you plan to attach thick lace like this to a paper, I highly suggest using spray adhesive.  It works better than anything out there and will save you hours of frustration.  Below that is my envelope with the pull out dates.  This is one of my FAVORITE parts and I've had so many friends and family say how cute and fun it was to pull that out!  Time well spent.
On the right side is our information.  Excuse all the whited out lines, I am extra paranoid about people being able to access our information, so besides my own name, I've covered it all.  Anyways, the wording is printed on the same sandspeck paper we used for the front square and then is covered with a swirled design velum (easier to see in the above picture).  Again, I would suggest using spray adhesive.  We found that other glues (especially if only done around the edges) made the wording more difficult to read because it was not pressed firmly against the other.




My other FAVORITE part was the envelope.  We took pictures of me and Tyler, put them together, and printed them out on regular paper.  We then cut it to our desired shape and glued them inside of our envelopes.  This idea also works for the triangular shaped envelopes, we just used this shape because they could be ordered in the same sandspeck material that we used in the invitaiton.  This was also a big crowd pleaser!

Our RSVP card is made of the same carstock as the front of the invitation and was simply printed out on a regular printer.  Hint: Ask your local post office for the dimensions and weight of a "postcard".  Attaching a postcard stamp to the back of this card makes for a quick and easy way for your guests to respond.

The last little card was just for information; such as registry info and a link to our wedding website which has further details on alternative rain locations, hotels, and directions.  This was just printed normally onto the sandspeck paper.



And that, my friends is what our wedding invitations looked like.  It was a lot of hard work getting all the "little things" ready and put together, but I am really pleased with the end product.  With a little time and a lot of love, handmade wedding invitations can be something that your guests will appreciate and will let them know how special they are to you (and it's fun for you to make too!)

MATERIALS:

I hope you have enjoyed this post and have gotten a few ideas for your own projects (wedding or not).  Have any of you handmade your own wedding invitations?  What about similar items, like birthday or anniversary cards?  If so, I'd love to see them, feel more than welcome to share!

Sending my Love,
Kelsie Ann